Gender balance and the meanings of women in governance in post-genocide Rwanda

African Affairs

Volumn 107, Issue 428, 2008, Pages 361-386

  Burnet, Jennie E ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AUTHORITARIANISM; DEMOCRATIZATION; GENDER ISSUE; GENOCIDE; POLICY MAKING; POLITICAL PARTICIPATION; WOMENS STATUS;

AFRICA; CENTRAL AFRICA; RWANDA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA;

EID: 46149111701     PISSN: 00019909     EISSN: 14682621     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/afraf/adn024     Document Type: Article

References (128)

1. Estimates of how manv neonle died in the 1994 Lenocide vary widely. While how many died is irrelevant to whether or not the killings in Rwanda in 1994 were genocide, the issue is highly politicized so it is necessary to indicate the sources. The number I use here comes from Alison Des Foraes, Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda (Human Riahts Watch, New -fork, 1999), p. 15.
2. For more on the numbers of dead see Scott Straus's analysis in Scott Straus, The Order of Genocide: Race, power, and war in Rwanda (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2006), pp. 41-64.
3. Gretchen Bauer and Hannah Evelyn Britton, 'Women in African parliaments: a continental shift?' in Hannah Evelyn Britton and Gretchen Bauer (eds), Women in African Parliaments (Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO, 2006), p. 1.
4. Since me parliamentary elections in 2003, the Rwandan Parliament has had me highest percentage of female representation in the world, ranging from 48.8 percent in 2003 to 42.3 percent in September 2006.
5. The 2003 statistics are reported in Timothy Longirian, 'Rwanda: achieving equality or serving an authoritarian state? in Hannah Evelyn Britton and Gretchen Bauer (eds), Women in African Parliaments (Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO, 2006), p. 144, and they are widely cited by the Rwandan government in speeches and press conferences.
6. The 2006 statistics are based on the author's analysis of the Rwandan National Parliament membership list published on its website (25 September 2006).
7. Longinan, 'Rwanda: Achieving equality', p. 133.
8. For example, see Elizabeth Powley, 'Strengthening governance: The role of women in Rwanda's transition' (report, Women Waging Peace/Hunt Alternatives Fund, Cambridge, MA, 2003), available at (21 January 2008)
9. and see UNDP-Rwanda website, 'Address by her Excellency President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf at the Official opening of the Women Parliamentarians International Conference' Kigali, Rwanda, 23 February 2007, available at (9 August 2007).
10. See for example, Hannah Evelyn Britton and Gretchen Bauer (eds), Women in African Parliament s (Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO, 2006)
11. Hannah Evelyn Britton, Women in the South African Parliament: From resistance to governance (University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL, 2005)
12. Anne Marie Goetz and Shireen Hassim, (eds), No Shortcuts to Power: African women in politic, and policy making (Zed Books, London, 2003)
13. Aili Mari Tripp, 'Expanding "civil society": Women and political space in contemporary Uganda' Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 36, 2 (1998), pp. 84-107;
14. Aili Mari Tripp, 'Gender, political participation and the transformation of association life in Uganda and Tanzania,' African Studies Review 37, 1 (1994), pp. 107 31;
15. Aili Mari Tripp, 'The politics of autonomy and cooperation in Africa: the case of the Ugandan women's movements', Journal of Modern African Studies 39, 1 (2001), pp. 101-28;
16. Aili Tripp, Dior Konate, and Colleen Lowe-Morna, 'Sub-Saharan Africa: on the fast track to women's, political representation' in Drude Dahlerup (ed.), Women, Quotas and, Politics (Routledge, London, 2006), pp. 112-37:
17. Aili Mari Tripp, Women awd Politics in Uganda (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI, 2000)
18. Aili Mari Tripp, 'Women in movement transformations in African political landscapes'. International Feminist Journal of Politics 5, 2 (2003), pp. 233-55.
19. Drude Dahlerup (ed.), Women. Quotas and Politics (Routledge, London, 2006).
20. Aili Mari Tripp, 'Women's movements and challenges to neopatrimonial rule: Oreliminary observations from Africa'. Development and Change 32, 1 (2001), pp. 33-54;
21. Sylvia Tamale, When Hens Begin to Crow: Gender and Parliamentary politics in Uganda (Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1999).
22. The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) is the current ruling party in Rwanda. Founded in Uganda in the late 1980s, the RPF grew out of earlier organizations of Tutsi exiles (such as the UNAR) whose intent was to return to Rwanda through armed resistance. The RPF ended the genocide in July 1994 by taking control of the country.
23. The research was conducted over a series of field trips to Rwanda. Data were gathered through focus groups, formal interviews, conversations, questionnaires, participant observation, and documentary research among other means. In 1997 and 1998, I made brief field trips (4 months and 3 months). In 1999-2001, I conducted ethnographic research via participant observation in a rural community in southern Rwanda for 12 months and in a middle-class neighhourbood in the capital for 12 months. During that time, I made numerous trips to other reLions of the country to conduct additional interviews and Lather data. In 2002, I made two trips to Rwanda of six weeks each, and in 2003 a trip of two weeks. In 2007, I Spent 4 weeks in Rwanda conducting interviews and focus groups with women's organizations, women members of government, and women leaders of civil society organizations.
24. Filip Reyntjens, 'Post-1994 politics in Rwanda: Problematising "liberation" and "democratisation" ',Third World Quarterly 27, 6 (2006), pp. 1103-17.
25. See also Thomas Carothers, 'The end of the transition paradigm,' Journal of Democracy 13, 1 (2002), pp. 5-21.
26. Alicia Phillips Mandaville and Peter P. Mandaville, 'Introduction: rethinking democratization and democracy assistance,' Development 50, 1 (2007), pp. 5-13.
27. Filip Reyntjens, L'Afrique des grands lacs en crise: Rwanda, Burundi 1988-1994 (Karthala, Paris, 1994). p. 305.
28. Jennie E. Burnet, 'Whose genocide? Whose truth? Representations of victim and perpetrator in Rwanda' in Alex Laban Hinton and Kevin O'Neill (eds), Genocide: Truth, Memory and Representation (Duke University Press, Durham, NC, in press).
29. Human Rights Watch, 'Rwanda: The search for security and human rights abuses' (report, Human Rights Watch, New York, 2000), available at (20 January 2008) and (20 January 2008), pp. 121, 182.
30. Filip Reyntjens, 'Rwanda, ten years on: From genocide to dictatorship', African Affairs 103, 411 (2004), p. 411;
31. Filip Reyntjens, 'Post-1994 politics in Rwanda';
32. Longrnan, 'Rwanda: Achieving equality'.
33. Longman, 'Rwanda: Achieving equality', p. 146.
34. Ibid., D. 147;
35. International Crisis Group, '"Consensual democracy" in Dost-genocide Rwanda: Evaluating the March 2001 district elections.' (Report, International Crisis Group, Brussels, Belgium, 2001).
36. The orchestrated nature of elections is an open secret in Rwanda today. In interviews conducted in 2007, numerous citizens confirmed that while elections usually have a minimum of three candidates, the outcome is always predetermined. One interviewee recounted a story of an election in an umudugu ('village', the smallest administrative subdivision in Rwanda folkwing the administrative reorganization of January 2006) in the capital, Kigali, where the citizens failed to elect the pre-selected candidate. The elections official who was overseeing the election declared, 'No. no, no! You haven't done it right. Let's try again to see if you can do what we've asked.'
37. Longman, 'Rwanda: Achieving equality'. p. 146.
38. Among We first human rights organizations to be suppressed was the umbrella body, CLADHO, which was. infiltrated and dismantled from within in 1996. The most recent was LIPRODHOR, which was the only local human rights organization to report critically on the RPF regime and RPA. In 2003, MPs denounced LIPRODHOR as'promoting divisionism' and a 'genocidal ideology' and called for a parliamentary commission to investigate it and several other NGOs. Virtually all of LIPRODHOR's leadership and senior members fled Rwanda in June, July or August of 2003. While LIPRODHOR still exists, its current members and staff are members of the RPF who toe the party line. In 2001, the RPF regime quashed an initiative by former President (and former RPF member) Pasteur Bizimungu to found a new political party, charging him and his associates with treason. In 2003, the MDR was completely banned when a parliamentary commission found it guilty of promoting divisionism and a genocide ideology. This nail in the coffin lid followed the internal destruction of the party begun by Anastase Gasana in 1999.
39. Longman, 'Rwanda: Achieving equality', p. 140.
40. Ibid.
41. Aili Mari Tripp, 'Uganda: Agents of chanae for women's advancement?' in Hannah Evelyn Britton and Gretchen Bauer (eds), Women in African Parliaments (Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO, 2006), p. 112.
42. Ibid. pp. 120-1.
43. Freedom House ranked 'accountability and public voice' in Uganda 3.99 out of 7 (where 0 is the least free and 7 is the most free) in 2006, whereas for Rwanda in 2005 it was only 1.48 out of 7. For Uganda, see Nelson Kesfir, 'Country report - Uganda' in Sanja Tatic and Christopher Waller (eds), Countries at the Crossroads (Freedom House, New York, 2007) available at (21 January 2008). For Rwanda, see Sara Rakita, 'Country report - Rwanda' in Sanja Tatic and Christopher Waller (eds.), Countries at the Crossroads (Freedom House, New York, 2007) available at (21 January 2008).
44. Longman, 'Rwanda: Achieving equality', p. 141.
45. In French, Le Ministère du Genre et la Promotion Féminine (MIGEPROF), and in Kinyarwanda, 'Minisiteri y'Iterambere ry'Umunyarwandakazi'. The Kinyarwanda title of the Ministry is literally, 'The Ministry for the Promotion of the Female Rwandan'.
46. Judithe Kanakuze 'Le rôle de la femme dans le processus de démocratisation an Rwanda' (paper presented at the Séminaire sur l'observation électorale par la société civile rwandaise/POER, Kigali, Rwanda, 5 August 2004), p. 4. Interviews by the author, 1998, 1990, 2000, and 2001.
47. It is debatable whether the term 'elections' is appropriate, as they were held in open-air plenaries where women were asked to queue behind the candidate 'of their choice'. The panel of candidates was selected minutes before the voting. There were no campaigns and no public debate about the candidates. With the degree of social, political, and military control in Rwandan society, it is doubtful that anyone's choice was freely made. Nonetheless, this style of 'election' became the standard for local-level elections when 'democratization' was initiated by the Transitional Government in 1999.
48. One cell is composed of roughly 100-200 households. Rwandan administrative structure is extremely hierarchical and penetrates to the most basic level. The levels from smallest to largest are: Ten houses (nyumbakumi), cell (akagare), sector (umurenge), district (akarere), province (intara), and national ( iqihugu). The names of certain of thesze designations, were changed in English and Kinyarwanda with the administrative reorganizations of December 2000 and January 2006.
49. The 1998 elections for women's leaders were the model for local elections in 1999 (see note 26). While the quouing model of election might be appropriate for the women's, councils, which have little political authority, this model's use in electing local-level authorities, who have a great deal of political authority - and, more importantly, become part of the electoral college for district, provincial, and national elections - seriously undermines the legitimacy of these elections. See International Crisis Group, '"Consensual democracy" in Dost-genocide Rwanda: Evaluating the March 2001 district elections' (Africa Report No. 34, International Crisis Grout), Brussels/Nairobi, 2001)
50. and International Crisis Group, 'Rwanda at the end of the transition: A necessary political liberalisation' (Africa Report No. 53, International Crisis Group, Brussels/Nairobi, 2002.).
51. The exception being certain positions that mirrored the appointed administrative positions (responsable and conseiller) that they replaced.
52. Longman, 'Rwanda: Achieving equality', p. 144.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid., p. 141.
55. Kagame received the award on 12 December 2007 at a ceremony in Dakar. Senegal. 'African Gender Forum and Award', African Gender Award website, December 2007, available at (21 January 2008).
56. '2007 Award laureate'. African Gender Award website. January 2007, available at (8 August 2007).
57. 'Backaround paper: "walking the talk"' UNDP-Rwanda website. (8 August 2007).
58. 'Women parliamentarians international conference under the theme "Gender, nation building and the role of parliaments"'. UNDP-Rwanda website, 23 February 2007, (8 Auaust 2007).
59. 'Address by her Excellency President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf at the official opening of the Women Parliamentarians International Conference', UNDP-Rwanda website, (9 August 2007).
60. Interview with international human rights observer, Mav 2007.
61. Catherine Newbury and Hannah Baldwin, 'Confronting the aftermath of conflict: Women's organizations in postgenocide Rwanda' in Krishna Kumar (ed.). Women and Civil War: ImPact, organizations, and action (Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO, 2001), p. 77.
62. Bauer and Britton, 'Women in African parliaments: A continental shift?', p. 16.
63. See Chapter 6 in Jennie E. Burnet, Genocide Lives in Us: Amplified silence and the politics of memory in Rwanda (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Dissertation Services, 2006), pp. 175-204.
64. Newbury and Baldwin, 'Confronting the aftermath of conflict'.
65. Ibid., p. 99.
66. Ibid.
67. Kanakuze,'Le rôle de la femme', p. 2.
68. Ibid.
69. Prime Minister Uwilingimana was killed in the first days of the genocide in April 1994 so that she could not speak out against it. Although a Hutu, she was among the top priorities on the Presidential Guard's roster of people to eliminate. She was killed along with 10 Belgian peacekeepers who were part of the UNAMIR mission.
70. Jennie E. Burnet and Jacqueline Mukandamage, 'Réseau des femmes oeuvrant pour le développement rural: An organizational case study' (organizational case study report, United States Agency for International Development, Washington, DC, 2000).
71. Interviews with account holders, Kigali, Rwanda, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000.
72. Ibid.
73. Interviews, Kigali. Rwanda, 2002, 2007.
74. Newbury and Baldwin, 'Confronting the aftermath of conflict', p. 101;
75. Pro-Femmes Twese Hamwe Home Page, available at (1 March 2006).
76. Nzambazamariya died in the Kenya Airways crash off the cost of Côte d'Ivoire in 2000, so she received the award posthumously.
77. Interviews with Pro-Femmes members and MIGEFASO/MIGEPROF officials, Kigali, Rwanda, in 1998, 1999 and 2001.
78. 'Transition initiatives: Rwanda Women in Transition (WIT)', USAID website, September 1999, available at (7 March 2007).
79. 'USAID/OTI programme summary Rwanda: November 2000.' USAID. November 2000, (7 March 2007).
80. Interviews with leaders of Pro-Femmes Twese Hamwe, AVEGA, Arfem, and Duterimbere, Kigali, Rwanda, 1997, 1998.
81. Interviews with Rwandan women participants, Kigali. Rwanda, 2001, 2002, 2007.
82. This conceptualization of civil society as an extension of the state is typical of post-liberation states. See Sara Rich Dorman, 'Post-liberation politics in Africa: Examining the Political legacy of struggle', Third World Quarterly, 27, 6 (2006), pp. 1097-1100.
83. Human Rialus Watch. World Report 2002, (8 March 2007).
84. Republic of Rwanda, 'Law to supplement Book One of the Civil Code and to institute Part Five reaarding matrimonial regimes, liberalities and successions', Official Gazette of the Republic of Rwanda 38, 22 (1999).
85. Bauer and Britton, 'Women in African parliaments: A continental shift?', p. 19.
86. Interviews by author, 1998 and 2000.
87. Longman for example, states that the leaders of Pro-Femmes Twese Hamwe 'identified the presence of women in parliament as an important factor in getting their legislation passed'. Longman, 'Rwanda: Achieving equality', p. 145.
88. Ibid., p. 144.
89. Ibid.
90. Interview. Kigali. June 2007.
91. Under the Habyarimana government, very few women managed to enter the National University of Rwanda, but in the New Rwanda the government has raised the minimum qualifications for civil service positions and civil society (including, the international NGOs) has followed suit. In Rwanda today, many women undertake university studies.
92. Herman Musahara and Christopher Huggins, 'Land reform, land scarcity and post-conflict reconstruction: A case study of Rwanda' in Christonher Huggins and Jenny Clover (eds), From the Ground Up: Land rights, conflict and peace in sub-Saharan Africa (Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, South Africa, 2005). pp. 269-346;
93. Alison DesForges, 'Land in Rwanda: Winnowing out the chaff.' L'Afrique des Grands-Lacs. Annuaire 2005-2006 (2006), no. 353-71.
94. Jennie E. Burnet and Rwanda Initiative for Sustainable Development, 'Culture, practice and law: Women's access to land in Rwanda' in Lynne Muthoni Wanyeki (ed.), Women and Land in Africa: Culture, religion and realizing women's right's (Zed Books, London and New York, 2003). no. 176-206;
95. Human Rights Watch, 'Uprooting the rural poor in Rwanda' (Report, HRW, New York, 2001).
96. MIGEPROF's response was baffling given its robust programme of gender trainings and its mission to mainstream gender in all government programmes.
97. Johan Pottier, 'Land reform for peace? Rwanda's 2005 Land Law in context,' Journal of Agrarian Change 6, 4 (2006), p. 533.
98. Bauer and Britton, 'Women in African parliaments: A continental shift?', p. 28.
99. Interview with leader ofa national women's organization, Kigali, November 2003.
100. Bauer and Britton, 'Women in African parliaments: A continental shift?', p. 28.
101. Interviews with members of women's organizations, Kigali, Rwanda, April 2002, July 2002, November 2003.
102. Bauer and Britton, 'Women in African parliaments: A continental shift?', p. 22.
103. Tripp, 'Uganda: Agents of change for women's advancement?', pp. 130-1.
104. Interviews, Kigali, Rwanda 2007 and United States of America 2005, 2006.
105. Begoña Aretxaga, Shattering Silence: Women, nationalism, and Political subjectivity in Northern Ireland (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1997), p. 6.
106. Oryeronke Oyewumi, The Invention of Women: Making an African sense of Western gender discourses (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, 1997).
107. Villia Jefremovas, Brickyards to Graveyards: From production to genocide in Rwanda (State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 2002) pp. 84-5.
108. For an in-depth exploration of the uses of ideal types of the 'timid virgin' and virtuous wife' to control women's agency in pre-genocide Rwanda, see Villia Jefremovas, 'Loose women, virtuous wives and timid virgins: Gender and control of resources in Rwanda,' Canadian Journal of African Studies 27, 3 (1991) pp. 378-95,
109. and Jefremovas, Brickyards to Graveyards, pp. 97-108.
110. Donna Pankhurst, 'Women and politics in Africa: The case of Uganda' in Karen Ross (ed.), Women, Politics, and Change (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002), p. 127.
111. See also Dahlerup, ed, Women, Quotas and Politics;
112. Krishna Kumar 'Civil wars women and gender relations: An overview' in Krishna Kumar (ed.), Women and Civil War: Impact, organization, and action. (Lynne Rienner. Boulder, CO, 2001), pp- 5-26;
113. Spyros A. Sofos, 'Inter-ethnic violence and gendered constructions of ethnicity in former Yugoslavia', Social Identities 2 1 (1996). pp. 73-91;
114. Aili Tripp, Dior Konate, and Colleen Lowe-Morna, 'Sub-Saharan Africa: On the fast track to women's political representation' in Dahlerup (ed.), Women, Quotas and Politics, pp. 112-37;
115. Meredeth Turshen and Clotilde Twagiramariya, What Women Do in Wartime: Gender and conflict in Africa (Zed Books, London and New York, 1998).
116. Human Rights, Watch, 'Shattered lives: Sexual violence during the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath' (report, Human Rights Watch, New York, 1996). At that time, approximately two million Rwandans (one quarter of the population) was living in exile in refugee camps in eastern Zaïre and western Tanzania. They had fled Rwanda from July-October 1994, when the RPF took control of the Rwandan territory.
117. Office National de la Population (ONAPO), 'Final report, socio-demographic survey 1996' (Ministry of Finance and Planning, Kigali, Rwanda, 1998), p. 18. In late 1996 and early 1997, the refugees returned en masse when the Alliance dess forces démocratiques pour la liberation du Congo (AFDL) and the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA,) attacked the camps to force them to close. The AFDL was a purportedly indigenous rebel movement, led by Laurent Kabila and backed by the Rwandan and Ugandan militaries, that attacked Zaïre in 1996 with the goal of overthrowing Mobutu Sese Seko's government. The RPA was the military wing of the post- 1994 Rwandan government. With the approval of the new Constitution in 2003, it was renamed the Rwandan Defence Force (RDF). it is unclear to what extent the ONAPO study included Rwandans returning from exile en masse in late 1996 and 1997 Yet, a significant part of this jump could attributed to the large influx of predominantly 'Tutsi' exiles who returned to Rwanda beginning in early 1995 (once the RPF wns securely in power) after a lifetime in exile. Although far less dramatic than the situation in 1994-5, this demographic imbalance has grave consequences for single women and widows. Very few have the opportunity for a real marriage. For the 20-24 years age group the sex ratio drops to 71. and for the 25-29 years age group it is only 69 (ONAPO, 'Final report'. p. 18).
118. Republic of Rwanda, Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, and National Census Commission, 'Report on the preliminary results: The general census of population and housing: 16-30 August 2002' (Government of Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda, 2003). pp. 17, 39 (Table 19).
119. I defined 'adult' as over 20 years of age. -The actual percentage for all of these studies could be even higher as many women with husbands in prison report their husbands as members of the household in surveys. Similarly, women are often reluctant to indicate that they are heads of household even when their husbands are not present (whether because they are dead, in prison, missing, or polygamous and residing with another wife). Polygamy is illegal in Rwanda (and condemned by the churches), but it has some social recognition and precedence in certain Rwandan traditions.
120. Republic of Rwanda, 'Report on the preliminary results', p. 39 (Table 19).
121. Burnet and Rwanda Initiative for Sustainable Development, 'Culture, practice and law', p. 11;
122. Human Rights Watch, 'Shattered lives: Sexual violence', p. 19. Interviews with members of Duhozanye, a widows-of-the-genocide association in Save commune, November 1999.
123. HRW, 'Shattered lives: Sexual violence', p. 22.
124. Jefremovas, 'Loose women, virtuous wives and timid virgins';
125. Jefremovas, Brickyards to Graveyards, pp. 97-108.
126. Although women's labour accounted for 60 to 70 percent of agricultural labour inputs before the genocide, men were responsible for the heaviest physical labour such as breaking up new or fallow ground and for managing cash crops (especially coffee). Réseau des femmes oeuvrant pour le développement rural, 'Profil socio-économique de da femme Rwandaise' (report, Kigali, Rwanda, 1991).
127. Interviews by author, various locations in Rwanda between 1997 and 2003.
128. Anne Aghion, Gacaca: Living Together Again in Rwanda? (Documentary film, First Run/Icarus Films, New York, 2002).